An extraordinary bright orange flash has lit up the sky in Russia’s Sverdlovsk region in the Urals. While locals captured the massive ‘blast’ on numerous cameras, both scientists and emergency services still struggle to explain the unusual event.

Dark evening skies in the town of Rezh in Sverdlovsk region near
Russia's Ekaterinburg turned bright orange for some ten seconds
on November 14, with the event being caught on several cameras by
the locals.

A driver filmed the massive flash with his dashcam, later posting
the video on YouTube, with more people commenting they’ve seen it
too. Teenagers in the town of Rezh also filmed the phenomenon
with a mobile phone.

Theories of what might have caused the “blast” appeared both on
social and traditional media, with a new meteorite or military
exercise in the region being among the top guesses. Regional
emergency services said no accidents in connection with the event
had been recorded. No sound of explosion has been reported
either.

According to E1.ru, the emergency officials suggested the
military were behind the flash, as they might have had a
scheduled explosive ordnance disposal procedure. The city
administration has also said such ammunition disposal might have
taken place, while the military themselves denied they were
behind the mystery.

“No exercise and training were underway on that day, and no
military units are based in the region, so we have nothing to do
with it,” a military press service told E1.ru.

A fireball caused by an asteroid’s collision with the Earth's
atmosphere is among other presumed reasons for the burning sky.

“Looks like a falling bolide, which invaded us. Because of
the low cloud cover it ceased to exist above the clouds and lit
up the whole sky,” a member of the meteorites committee of
the Russian Academy of Sciences Viktor Grokhovsky told 66.ru.

Another astronoma, Vadim Krushinsky, doubted his colleague's
theory, saying the color of the flash does not support the
asteroid speculation. The shade of light depends on the body’s
temperature, and flashes caused by bolides are usually whiter, he
explained to Ekburg.tv. The observatory engineer suggested his
own theory, saying a space rocket launch might have been the
cause.

A path of launches from the Plesetsk cosmodrome lies above the
area, Krushinsky said. But, according to Russian Federal Space
Agency's website, the latest launch from the Plesetsk cosmodrome
happened on October 29, with the next one planned for November
24.

People in the Urals witnessed a space ‘invasion’ event a year and
a half ago, when the famous Chelyabinsk meteorite hit the region. A
massive fireball explosion in February 2013 injured over a
thousand people with shattered glass mostly, and damaged many
residential and industrial buildings.